ABSTRACT
We got along very well in that little back office, up two flights of stairs. We commenced business in March, and March is in Spring time; Summer would soon come. The building was not heated, but the expense of coal and a stove might possibly be saved or delayed until Autumn. Somebody had advertised the enormous heating powers of a sheet iron cylinder, to be suspended over a gas jet—patent applied for—retail price 88 cents, and one of these moderated the March temperature of that small office to some degree. One particularly bad morning I started up the “heater,” and, locking the door, sallied out to visit the post office for hoped for letters and papers. Evidently I had dropped the not fully extinguished match into the half filled basket containing waste paper; then worth five cents a pound. When I returned from the postoffice there had been a conflagration. The waste basket was gone, the contents had disappeared, and in the jute carpet, nearly new, near the end of the valued black walnut table, was a black bordered hole about as large as the bottom of a half bushel measure. The injury to the carpet was serious, but could be repaired by shoving under an extra half yard or so and fastening down the black edges of the circle with carpet tacks made and provided for such purposes. Plainly the office ought not to be left alone. Mr. Dodd knew a boy named Andrew, who was employed by a photographer who had some other business also, and only opened his studio afternoons. We secured Andrew’s services for half of every day. He came in the morning, swept the office, brought the mail, and at twelve noon departed for his other place. I do not remember whether it was $2 a week or $3 that was paid to Andrew. I would be inclined to think it was $3, but really that seems dear for a boy who gave only half his time. Still this was War time and everything commanded a high price. The 79time came, later, when wc needed the entire services of a whole boy, and Andrew, I think, returned with his parents to Scotland; but we never afterwards had a boy that got quite so close to us as Andrew did.
